This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Not too long ago, Adele Pierre's clients wanted flowers but not bees. They wanted to grow vegetables without bugs. As for trees, they wanted them, but they couldn't be messy.

"They had lost their connection with nature," says the landscape designer from Brant County. But over the last two years her clients, some with tiny yards in Toronto, others with acres in the country, are going green with glee.

"The first thing I tell them is reduce the size of the lawn, it's usually the highest-maintenance area of the garden," says Pierre. And it's often the section most reliant on chemicals.

Many of Pierre's clients had already started to shed their chemical additions. They were fine with the bees busy pollinating plants in their gardens, and tried not to begrudge the bugs that homestead on the tomatoes, lettuce and potatoes. "People want the control that comes with growing their own food, and they're learning to accept that perfection isn't always possible with organic methods," she says.

Article Continued Below

Few people in Toronto have seen more gardens and talked to more gardeners than Paul Zammit, the new director of the Toronto Botanical Garden. "I've walked into a lot of garden sheds that looked like drugstores," he says with a rueful laugh. In his own enthused style he has always encouraged gardening without the chemical crutches. "Plant for habitat and diversity, a wide range of plant material keeps balance in the garden. The days of monoculture are dead."

Monoculture is growing one type of plant over a wide area, in home gardens that usually describes a large lawn. Get a bug or disease going in the lawn and it turns into a big patch of ugly. But how do you grow good-looking grass in this new post-pesticide era?

It's good to recall the sage observation of the late Henry Kock, horticulturist at the University of Guelph. "Weed & Feed provides a smorgasbord for bugs," he would say, and would go on to describe how fertilizer produces rapid lush growth that insects attack with relish, necessitating the need for something to kill the bugs and the opportunistic weeds that move into ailing lawns.

Whatever size lawn you have, there are ways to keep it healthy without going to the medicine chest. Pierre says the best thing you can do is give it a top dressing in the spring, of two to five centimetres of organic matter, such as compost or even clean top soil, and then over seed it with a good quality grass seed.

Zammit likes a product called Eco-Lawn, available at Wildflower Farm near Orillia. The grass seed mixture grows in full sun, part shade or even deep shade and is drought-tolerant once established.

The success of green gardening according to Zammit, starts with the soil. "Feed the soil, not the plants, it's the building block of a great garden." And his formula is simple: Any soil, clay or sand is improved with the addition of organic matter. By adding compost from your own supply, or well-rotted manure, soil structure and fertility is improved along with its ability to hold moisture.

Design and proper plant selection also will help ease the transition to the chemical-free garden. There are many plants, some native some not, that will grow perfectly well and robustly without any intervention from us. Adele Pierre particularly likes our native serviceberry trees and redbuds, the lovely oakleaf hydrangea, dogwoods and witch hazels. Choose trees wisely and a garden will be graced with four seasons of interest including flowers, berries and fall colour. Berries will attract birds, flowers will be visited by bees and butterflies. Shrubs add structure, habitat for wildlife, and colour to the garden. They also have an uncanny ability to reduce maintenance. A handsome doublefile viburnum, for instance, will take up a good amount of space, reducing the need for a bunch of smaller plants, and at the same time add winter structure and interest. And with a layer of mulch underneath the shrub you gain an area that is virtually weed-free. Giving up the products that promise a pristine garden might be easier if opportunities for enjoyment are enhanced.

"I like to design gardens where people get off the deck and go on tours with a cup of coffee to see what's in bloom," Pierre says. "By building in extra places to sit, simple ones with a bench, a birdbath and some flagstone, you reduce maintenance and provide new views and places to relax." Pierre also likes the new eco pavers from Unilock that have bigger gaps between the stones to allow drainage through to the soil, rather than storm drains.

Zammit and Pierre are both noticing lively interest in organic vegetable gardening, and that trend has turned William Dam Seeds in Dundas into a hot place to shop. William Dam has been selling seeds free of chemical treatment for 60 years. "We're having a good year," says Connie Dam Byl. She credits the eat-local movement for bringing a new generation of gardeners into the store seeking seeds and advice on how to grow using green methods. Her first tip is start small; planting too much is overwhelming and wasteful if edibles can't be harvested fast enough.

Taking baby steps with a herb garden is what Pierre advocates. Most herbs are drought-tolerant, and disease and pest-resistant, making them a top choice for the eco-conscious gardener. Choose correctly and they are also great landscape plants. They can be used between pavers and flagstone to soften the lines of a pathway, or a combination such as thyme and lavender, makes an aromatic and low-maintenance replacement for lawn grass.

There's not much excuse for going into this new era of green gardening, short of information. Garden expert Mark Cullen has come out with The Canadian Garden Primer,An Organic Approach, Daria Price Bowman's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Vegetable Gardening is new in bookstores, and the Toronto Botanical Garden launches a full-out post-Earth Day assault tomorrow with a wild-edibles family walk, and timely advice from Toronto Master Gardeners, Canadian Organic Growers and the Toronto Beekeepers Association. On May 7 and 9 the Royal Botanical Gardens' annual plant sale at the arboretum in Dundas features native plants, herbs, vegetables, trees and shrubs and lots of advice.

The City of Toronto website has a list of what's banned and what's not at: toronto.ca/health/pesticides. There is also information on how to dispose of banned products, and how to get along without them.

Whether or not it's easy being green depends on attitude. Listen to Adele Pierre talk about the delightful plants that bring joy to the garden, and understand that things like dogwoods, viburnum and witch hazel are beautiful without baggage. By using a diverse group of plants, choosing types that are insect- and disease-resistant and relaxing our standards just a bit, more gardens will turn from battlegrounds to hallowed ground.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com